He said the state of emergency, implemented in the hours after the attacks would stay in place and border checks would be maintained at all borders.
Mr Hollande said the attacks were planned outside of France and against France, particularly against the values of freedom.
“What happened yesterday was an act of war,’’ he said. “And faced with war a country must make the appropriate decisions.
“This was committed by Daesh against France, against the values we defend throughout the world, against the country we are. It is an act of war prepared and organised and planned from outside. It is absolutely barbaric. The families are in distress and pain and the country is also suffering.’’
Mr Hollande then went to the Bataclan concert hall, the scene of the deadliest atrocity and insisted his government would mount a merciless fight against terrorism.
British Prime Minister David Cameron warned his nation to brace for casualties from the attacks in Paris, but he has left the nation’s terror alert warning unchanged.
The British leader says the country “must be prepared for a number of British casualties” from the Paris atrocity. He condemned the “brutal and callous murderers”.
Mr Cameron said that the terror threat level in the UK would remain at “severe,” - the second-highest level - but that authorities would review plans amid an “evolving” threat from Islamic state.
ISIS CLAIMS ATTACKS AS THEIR WORK
The Islamic State jihadist group claimed the attacks in Paris in a statement posted online on Saturday.
It said “eight brothers wearing explosive belts and carrying assault rifles” conducted a “blessed attack on ... Crusader France.”
FINDING THOSE RESPONSIBLE
Mr Hollande said that the Islamic State militant group orchestrated the worst attacks seen in France since WWII and he vowed to strike back.
The multiple attacks across the city late Friday were “an act of war... committed by a terrorist army, the Islamic State, against France, against... what we are, a free country,” Mr Hollande said.
He declared three days of national mourning and put the nation’s security at its highest level.
German media reported that a 51-year-old man arrested last week after weapons were discovered in his car has been linked to the Paris attacks.
A spokesman for Bavarian state police confirmed that firearms, explosives and hand grenades had been found when undercover police stopped the suspect near the German-Austrian border on November five.
“He has refused to say what he planned to do or where the weapons came from,” Ludwig Waldinger told The Associated Press. “We are providing no further information at this point.”
Public broadcaster Bayrischer Rundfunk reported that German authorities contacted French officials shortly after the arrest. Citing unnamed investigators, the broadcaster reported that documents found during the arrest indicated that the man was traveling to Paris.
Bayrischer Rundfunk reported that the arms, which it said included an automatic rifle and one kilogram of TNT, were professionally hidden inside the body of the car, a VW Golf.
AS IT HAPPENED
More than 100 people including four police lost their lives inside the hall when three of the terrorists detonated their suicide vests. A fourth was killed by police. Witnesses described how the terrorists were yelling ‘Allah Akhbar’ inside the Bataclan.
After hours of uncertainty police confirmed eight terrorists have been killed, seven of them by detonating suicide vests packed with explosives.
The bloody Friday 13th attack on Paris began when four of the gunmen opened fire on a Cambodian restaurant in the popular 10th arondissement before moving to other nearby streets and mowing down diners and pedestrians. They then moved inside the Bataclan concert hall, which is just 200m from the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the scene of the grisly terror attack in January this year, and began firing upon the crowd with AK-47 assault weapons.
After a wave of panic and rush to the stage, about 60 terrified concert goers climbed over the roof of the Bataclan concert hall and were hauled to safety one by one in an adjacent apartment, while others hid inside the false ceiling of the toilets.
At the same time, another group of three terrorists were outside the Stade de France, packed with 80,000 fans watching a friendly football match between France and Germany and attended by the Mr Hollande and other politicians.
Huge explosions were heard inside the stadium when two of the suicide bombers detonated their vests but the game continued as police grappled with the situation outside and Mr Hollande was whisked away to the Elysee Palace to chair an emergency security meeting. Three hours after the bombings the German national team was still being held inside the stadium.
French radio station Europe 1 had a reporter inside the crowded Bataclan concert hall watching the American band Eagles of Death Metal when the attack began.
Pierre Janaszak said he thought the first shots were part of the act ‘’but we quickly understood, they were just firing into the crowd’’.
He said: “two or three individuals came in not wearing masks armed with Kalashnikov type automatic weapons and started shooting blindly into the crowd. The attack lasted 10 or 15 minutes, it was extremely violent and there was a wave of panic. Everybody ran towards the stage, there were scenes of trampling.’’
Of enormous concern was the ability of the gunmen to reload on multiple occasions.
‘’The reporter said: The attackers had all the time to reload at least three times, there weren’t masked and they were in charge. They were very young.’
Police chief Michel Cadot told reporters: “The terrorists, the murderers raked several cafe terraces with machinegun fire before entering Bataclan (a concert hall). There were many victims in terrible, atrocious conditions in several places.
Mr Cadot confirmed that there was one group of terrorists at the Stade de France and a second within the city. He said the police were still hunting for accomplices.
Mr Janaszak said the gunmen were blaming France for its role in Syria.
“I clearly heard them say ‘It’s the fault of Hollande, it’s the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria’. They also spoke about Iraq,” Mr Janaszak said.
AUSTRALIAN INJURED
At least two Australians found themselves in the crossfire as terrorists went on a three-hour rampage of death in co-ordinated shootings and bombings across the French capital.
Emma Parkinson, 19, of Hobart, was shot in the lower back and is recovering in a Paris hospital.
Ms Parkinson was injured in the attack at the Bataclan concert hall as US hard rock band Eagles of Death Metal played to about 1500 fans.
She was in a stable condition.
Friend Kate Rees told the Sunday Herald Sun: “She was lucky she wasn’t inside. She just kept saying to me that she was next door in the line and that she just needed to talk to her mum.”
Melbourne woman Sophie Doran was also at the concert but escaped uninjured by pretending she was dead to escape the attention of the gunmen.
The gunmen burst in and began firing at random before holding a large number of fans hostage.
They then began executing them before French police commandos stormed the hall. More than 100 fans died.
Michael Doran, father of Sophie, said his daughter had pretended she had been killed before the commandos arrived to rescue them.
“There were bodies everywhere and pretending you are dead must be a horrible experience,
Earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop confirmed she was aware one Australian had been injured in the attacks and the department was offering the injured person consular assistance. “The Australian government is continuing to work with French authorities to identify any other Australians who may be affected,” she said.
At this stage there are no reports of any Australians among the dead.
Ms Bishop said Australia had offered all possible assistance to French authorities.
“We stand in solidarity with the French people in condemning these horrific and devastating attacks,” she said.
TREATING THE INJURED
More than 300 people have been hospitalised following the attacks, with 80 in a critical condition.
“It has been a night of hell,’’ said Dr Patrick Pelloux, one of the doctors treating victims of the Paris terrorist attacks.
Dr Pelloux, an activist with friends at the Charlie Hebdo journal, was nearby when terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine and said of this latest attack that the staff were doing everything they could to save people.
The head of the Pompidou emergency services unit Philippe Juvin told reporters waiting outside that he had never experienced anything like it.
“My experience in Aghanistan doesn’t even compare,’’ Dr Juvin said. “It is something that is very difficult to handle.”
The hospital, which has called for the public to donate blood, has been treating 60 of the victims, of which 20 are in a serious condition. France 24 reported one couple emerged from the hospital in tears and another teenager, aged just 17 was distraught and told reporters he had just lost his girlfriend.
Parisians have been lining up for hours to give blood, piling flowers and notes and spilling tears outside a music hall where scores of people were killed.
Though deeply shaken, many residents of the hip neighborhood in eastern Paris tried to find a way to help the wounded in a string of attacks Friday night on the concert hall, crowded cafes and a stadium.
Long lines of blood donors snaked out of the St. Louis Hospital near the site of the bloodshed.
ELSEWHERE
The Philippines has put its military and police on full alert and pledged “higher security” for a world leaders meeting at an economic summit in Manila next week after gunmen.
US President Barack Obama is set to join the leaders of China, Japan, Australia, Canada and 15 other countries at an annual Asia-Pacific Economic Conference summit in Manila on November 18-19.
“There is no credible threat registered at this time, but let us all be cooperative and vigilant,” President Benigno Aquino said in a statement, also expressing solidarity with France after gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar” massacred scores of diners and concert-goers across Paris.
Pope Francis said he was shaken by the Paris attacks.
“I am shaken, I don’t understand these things, done by human beings... There cannot be justification, religious or human. It’s inhuman,” he said.
Prince Charles called for a minute’s silence at his birthday celebration in Perth to honour the paris victims.
At a BBQ to mark his 67th birthday in the coastal suburb of Cottesloe , the Prince of Wales described the attacks as appalling atrocities.
“I hope all of you here will be able to join with me in expressing our particular sympathy and solidarity with everybody in France,” the future king told the 500-strong crowd. “And also join with me in expressing as well utter, total horror at what has happened.
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